The weapons depots constituted the Islamist group’s logistic rear front, and the Egyptians reportedly also shut down arms workshops in Sheikh Zuweid which produced arms for Hamas.

Near those workshops, Hamas also operated firing ranges for testing rockets in the months before the Egyptian campaign, the officials said.

According to the Israeli sources, before the Egyptian revolution in 2011, whole sections of Sheikh Zuweid were considered extraterritorial for the Egyptian military, and Hamas therefore decided to locate its warehouses, test ranges and workshops there. Being in Egyptian territory, they would also be impervious from Israeli attack. The Israelis noted that the workshops were not large in scale and only a small portion of Hamas’s arms were produced there.

Egyptian security officials confirmed that there were storehouses in Shiekh Zuweid containing arms destined for Hamas, but they denied the presence of any workshops.

Bedouin tribes in the northern Sinai recently surrendered a stockpile of dozens of anti-tank missiles to the Egyptian authorities.

Relations between Hamas and Cairo broke down in recent months following the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammed Morsi by the military.

Egypt even referred to Hamas in the charge sheet against Morsi as a “terror organization.” Meanwhile, amid sour relations between Cairo and Gaza, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said that the Islamist terror group had renewed its relations with Tehran, in part due to the change in government there.

The Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported that the Egyptian authorities have taken effective measures to revoke the citizenship of Zahar and many other Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

The paper quoted an Egyptian source as saying that the latest measure targeted Palestinians who are “affiliated with certain Palestinian political parties or those who are connected to outlawed groups in Egypt.”

The source pointed out that Egyptian law prohibits those who obtain Egyptian citizenship from engaging in political activities or membership in political parties in the first five years.

Palestinian sources claimed last year that the Egyptian authorizes had agreed to grant citizenship to more than 50,000 Palestinians who were born to Egyptian mothers.

Last month, the Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabe revealed that Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim turned down a request by members of Zahar’s family to receive Egyptian citizenship.

The paper said that the decision was taken for “security reasons.” The decision applied to Zahar’s daughter, Huda, and his nephews, Abdullah and Ahmed.

Zahar confirmed last year that he had been granted Egyptian citizenship. He said that he was also planning to vote in the Egyptian presidential election.